Test Bank for Social Psychology 11th Edition David Myers

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05
Student:

1. According to anthropologists, which of the following is NOT true?

A. We are more alike than we are different.
B. All people migrated from Africa.
C. We are more different than we are alike.
D. We are social beings.
2. The evolutionary process by which nature selects traits that best enable organisms to survive and
reproduce in particular environmental niches is called
A. evolutionary adaptation.
B. evolutionary psychology.
C. natural adaptation.
D. natural selection.
3. According to natural selection, those with genes best suited to an environment are likely to
A. struggle and then perish.
B. perish.
C. survive yet struggle.
D. survive and reproduce.
4. is the study of the evolution of behavior using principles of natural selection.
A. Evolutionary adaptation
B. Evolutionary psychology
C. Natural adaptation
D. Natural selection
5. Evolutionary psychologists study
A. physical traits.
B. psychological traits.
C. both physical and psychological traits.
D. neither physical nor psychological traits.
6. Given the logic of evolutionary psychology, we can assume our distant ancestors preferred
foods.
A. sweet
B. bitter and sour
C. nutritious and energy-providing
D. vegetarian
7. The perspective highlights the kinship that results from our shared human nature.
A. evolutionary
B. cultural
C. normative
D. diversity
8. The implications of evolutionary psychology suggest that human success is defined by
A. acquiring wealth.
B. maintaining health.
C. exceeding average life expectancy.
D. having grandchildren.
9. One of the most important similarities in humans is our capacity
A. for self-destruction.
B. for altruism.
C. to dominate other species.
D. to learn and adapt.
10. Compared to other species, humans are restricted by their genetics.
A. less
B. more
C. similarly
D. not
11. The enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, and traditions shared by a large group of people and transmitted
from one generation to the next are called
A. beliefs.
B. norms.
C. cultures.
D. values.
12. According to Baumeister, a "huge and powerful advantage of culture" is
A. genetic diversity.
B. the division of labor.
C. evolution.
D. genetic similarity.
13. Human kinship is to the perspective as social diversity is to the perspective.
A. evolutionary; cultural
B. cognitive; psychoanalytical
C. humanistic; cultural
D. biological; humanistic
14. Zoe has lived in the United States all of her life, yet her Greek grandmother made sure that Zoe was
fluent in the Greek language so she would understand the Greek way of life. What has Zoe's grandmother
passed on to her?
A. a belief
B. a norm
C. a culture
D. a value
15. As an exchange student, you notice that standards of beauty are much different in the country you are
visiting. Billboards and advertisements display women that are not as thin as in the United States. You
conclude that this difference in standards of beauty is the result of different
A. norms.
B. languages.
C. climates.
D. cultures.
16. Rules for accepted and expected behavior are called
A. values.
B. norms.
C. attitudes.
D. both B and C
17. Norms behavior.
A. describe
B. prescribe
C. change
D. are the result of
18. Seven-year-old Mary says "Thank you" after opening each birthday present she receives because her
family considers it to be proper behavior. This best illustrates the influence of a
A. norm.
B. schema.
C. role.
D. stereotype.
19. Which statement about social norms is FALSE?
A. Social norms make social interactions run more smoothly.
B. Social norms cause us to feel uncomfortable when they are violated.
C. Social norms control us so successfully that we hardly sense their presence.
D. Social norms are not affected by culture.
20. Punctuality is one of the of North American businesspeople.
A. attitudes
B. norms
C. values
D. characteristics
21. The buffer space we like to maintain around our bodies is called our personal
A. zone.
B. space.
C. place.
D. distance.
22. According to Myers, most Americans maintain a personal space between themselves and strangers of
approximately
A. 4 feet or less.
B. 4 feet or more.
C. 2 feet or less.
D. 2 feet or more.
23. Those living prefer more personal distance space than those living .
A. closer to the equator; farther away from the equator
B. in Central America; in Iceland
C. in Latin America; in North America
D. farther away from the equator; closer to the equator
24. Your family is anticipating the arrival of an exchange student from Latin America. Being a student of
social psychology, you are aware that the student's preference for personal space will likely
A. be greater than your family's.
B. be less than your family's.
C. be the same as your family's.
D. depend on the situation.
25. What cultural differences or similarities were found in the research on pedestrian interaction in the U.S.
and Japan?
A. Americans were more likely to greet the research confederate who greeted them.
B. Japanese were more likely to greet the research confederate who greeted them.
C. Both Japanese and Americans did not smile back when the confederates smiled at them.
D. Both Japanese and Americans failed to respond to the confederates.
26. What cultural differences or similarities were found in the research on pedestrian interaction in the U.S.
and Japan?
A. Both cultures tended to look back at someone who looked at them.
B. Japanese were more likely to greet the research confederate who greeted them.
C. Both Japanese and Americans did not smile back when the confederates smiled at them.
D. Both Japanese and Americans failed to respond to the confederates.
27. Although there are many unoccupied tables in the restaurant, Rudolph decides to sit at the same table in
the chair right next to James. James feels uncomfortable because Rudolph has violated
A. his social role.
B. his personal space.
C. Brown's universal norm.
D. the personal rights taboo.
28. Which of the following is a universal norm according to the textbook?
A. cannibalism
B. incest
C. female genital mutilation
D. public nudity
29. Leung and Bond (2004) reported that there were five universal dimensions of social beliefs. Which of the
following is NOT one of those five?
A. justice
B. social complexity
C. reward for application
D. cynicism
30. According to research conducted by Leung and Bond (2004), those people who espouse express
lower life satisfaction as well as right-wing politics.
A. justice
B. social complexity
C. reward for application
D. cynicism
31. Brown (1987) reported that in many languages, forms of address, such as the distinction between formal
and informal varieties of "you," communicate not only social distance, but also
A. social complexity.
B. social status.
C. personal space.
D. fate control.
32. According to Brown (1987), in general, who is more likely to initiate intimacy?
A. the higher-status person
B. the lower-status person
C. the male
D. the female
33. Research on the Big Five personality traits indicates that
A. culture determines these traits.
B. differences among these traits in different countries are quite small.
C. national stereotypes about these traits are valid.
D. there are no cultural differences among these traits.
34. Research on the Big Five personality traits have been shown to be universal. Which is NOT one of the
five?
A. shy
B. open
C. agreeable
D. conscientious
35. Some norms are culture-specific, while others are universal. The universality of some norms is accounted
for by
A. the force of culture.
B. genetic diversity.
C. cultural similarities.
D. genetic predispositions.
36. Universal norms are to as culture-specific norms are to .
A. nurture; nature
B. evolution; biology
C. nature; nurture
D. biology; evolution
37. In psychology, the characteristics by which people define male and female, whether biologically or
socially influenced, is referred to as
A. sex.
B. gender.
C. sexual orientation.
D. culture.
38. Maccoby (2002) found that girls tend to compared to boys.
A. be less nurturing
B. talk more intimately
C. play more aggressively
D. be more active
39. Which of the following is false?
A. Women's telephone conversations last longer than men's.
B. Men send more text messages than women.
C. Women send more emotion expressing emails than men.
D. Women spend more time on social networks than men.
40. Pratto and her colleagues (1997) reported that tend to gravitate toward jobs that reduce
inequalities, such as a public defender.
A. the young
B. the elderly
C. men
D. women
41. Pratto and colleagues (1997) reported that tend to gravitate toward jobs that enhance
inequalities, such as a prosecuting attorney.
A. the young
B. the elderly
C. men
D. women
42. Being a student of social psychology, you can predict with reasonable accuracy that are more
likely to contribute to charitable organizations.
A. the young
B. the elderly
C. men
D. women
43. When faced with stress, women are more likely than men to
A. flee.
B. fight.
C. befriend.
D. collapse.
44. According to the text, are more likely to describe themselves as having empathy.
A. the young
B. the elderly
C. men
D. women
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both in Europe and Africa; and if these fools will rule a little longer the
whole empire will be lost.” So shall it be. They made their best friends
abroad, their enemies by their wicked deeds. Their new friends abroad
were anxious to help them in order to be helped by them. Who can doubt
that the Young Turks, the present rulers of the Ottoman empire, longed
for an opportunity to receive the approval of the fanatics at home and
gladden the hearts of their new friends abroad?
The opportunity came. The European war broke out. Even before the
war the Turkish rulers had planned a policy of unifying and Turkifying
the Moslem State. Their experiences with the Balkan nations had taught
a lesson that they would not soon forget. But they did not start their work
at once when the war began. They had another scheme or use for the
Armenians.
“Before declaring war upon Russia, the Government of the
Young Turks which had long ago decided upon this course,
sought to have the Armenians instigate a revolt among their co-
nationalists in the Russian provinces of the Caucasus. This
suggestion was presented to the Armenians at the very opening of
the war by a deputation composed of Nadji Bey, Boukar-Eddin-
Shakri Bey, and Hilmi Bey. Some Armenian notables were
assembled in Erzerum to exchange views concerning the
European war and its effects upon the interests of Armenia. The
deputation from the government in Constantinople visited the
assembly and revealed unreservedly the reason of their visit. It
declared that Enver Pasha and his colleagues were ready to
declare war upon Russia and expected from the Armenians
invaluable assistance. The Armenians were requested to form
volunteer legions that, with the Turkish propagandists, should
cross the Russian frontier, and incite the population of the
Caucasus to revolt. Nadji Bey was so sure of the success of the
proposition that he had brought with him to Erzerum twenty-
seven Persian, Turkish, and Circassian propagandists who with
the assistance of Armenian volunteers would foment disaffection
in the Caucasus.
“Nadji Bey spoke in a tone of perfect cordiality and
confidence. He described in glowing terms the compensation that
would accrue to the Armenians if their services, solicited by him,
were forthcoming. He endeavored to persuade the Armenians that
a revolution in the Caucasus was inevitable.[156] After having
 contributed to the victory, the Armenians would be granted
autonomy, under the protection of Turkey, thus reuniting all their
dispersed compatriots on both sides of the frontier. Enver Pasha’s
delegates were ready to remake the map of the Caucasus by a
single stroke of the pen. The Georgians and the Tartars were
allotted their share of the territory, and the Armenians would
receive Kars, the province of Erivan, Van, and Bitlis. But the
Armenians categorically refused these attractive propositions and
entrusted Nadji Bey with their advice to Enver Pasha not to
become embroiled in the European catastrophe, as it would lead
to the downfall of Turkey.
“‘This is treason,’ exclaimed Bouka-Eddin-Shakri Bey. ‘You
refuse to succor the Empire, forgetting that you enjoy its
hospitality.’
“Notwithstanding the violent objurgations, the Armenians
stood firm in their refusal.
“However, these emissaries of the Young Turks still hoped to
convert the Armenians to their views, and a few weeks later, on
the eve of the declaration of war upon Russia, they convoked the
assemblies of notables in all the vilayets, and once more
presented their suggestions—this time considerably modified.
They no longer demanded that the Armenians take the initiative
of an uprising in the Caucasus, but merely endeavored to
convince them of the imminence of a revolution and of the
advisability of their joining in it. For the second time the
Armenians remained imperturbable in their refusal.
“Finally war was declared between Russia and Turkey. Would
the Armenians shirk performing their military duty? Not at all.
They answered the call, reporting at the mobilization
stations.”[157]
The Armenians’ reform movement in 1912-3, under the presidency of
Boghos Nubar Pasha, who was appointed by the Catholicos, was a
peaceful effort to solicit the signatories of Berlin Treaty (1878) to induce
the Turkish government to put into execution the reforms guaranteed in
that treaty for Armenia.
After the consent of all the Powers was obtained, then “the Russian
draft [of reforms] was revised by the ambassadors of the Powers at
Constantinople, accepted with modifications, by the Young Turkish
Government, and actually promulgated by them on the 8th of February,
1914.”[158]
Could such a peaceful procedure have offered the Young Turks an
excuse of provocation for their atrocities committed in the following
year?

FOOTNOTES:
[153] October, 1908.
[154] On the 8th of Oct., 1908.
[155] The New International Year Book for the Year 1912, p. 734. Dodd,
Mead & Co., New York.
[156] Expected by the Holy War that was to be declared by Sheikh-ul-
Islam; as it has been done since Turkey joined the Central Powers.
[157] The “Martyrdom of Armenia,” by Paul Perrin, in The New Armenia,
May 15, 1916, New York.
[158] “The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, 1915-16,”
Documents presented to Viscount Grey by Viscount Bryce, p. 635, London.
 XVIII
THE MASSACRES OF 1915-16

There were two things which induced the Young Turks to declare war
on the Allies in the latter part of October, 1914. They were positive of a
victory as the early events of the war and agents of the Teutonic alliance
easily could, and did, persuade them. The assurance of conquests and
would-be acquisition of territories, which would restore to the Young
Turkish government its lost prestige both at home and abroad. But their
dreams were not speedily realized, and probably never will be.
The real reasons, however, for the beginning of the massacres at this
time were the opportune moment, the European war; the carrying out a
former well-laid policy of a unified and Turkified State; the diversion of
the attention of the Moslem populace from failures and mistakes of the
Young Turks, and the congeniality of the work of plunder and murder
which very few followers of Mohammed would refuse to enjoy. They
delight to see Christians and Christianity trampled under their feet. Thus
the Young Turks, the rulers of Turkey, gave the greatest pleasure to a
large number of Mohammedans by assigning to them the work of
annihilation of the oldest Christian nation in the empire.
The sufferings of the Armenians began right after the declaration of
war—or rather simultaneously with it. All the males between the ages of
twenty and forty-five, and soon those of eighteen to fifty, were called to
arms. Some paid commutation in place of enrolment, and others who had
passed the age of military training before the ratification of the new
military service law of 1908, as were entitled to exemption, as long as
they paid the annual commutation tax. Yet these also were drafted in
violation of their rights. However, they were not left in the army very
long, but were deprived of their arms by order of the government, and
put into groups of laborers to work on the roads. A “gang of
unscrupulous ruffians,” had control of the Turkish government, but
whether they had not quite matured their plans, or whether they were in
consultation with their foreign advisers, or whether they hesitated to put
their plans into action, they waited until the spring.
 The massacres began in the spring of 1915, but even before massacres
immediately after the declaration of war, the Turkish government also
proclaimed “a holy war”—jehad. In the fewest words, a holy war is this:
Ever since the reign of Sultan Selim I,[159] the Sultans of Turkey claimed
a lawful successorship to the Caliphs of Baghdad and the Sultans of
Egypt. The Sultan of Turkey is the head of Islam and the defender
thereof. Whenever, therefore, the Mohammedan faith is in danger, the
Sultan, the pretended successor of Mohammed, theoretically has the
power to call upon the faithful throughout the world to rise in arms
against the enemies of their religion.
The Turkish government was induced by her allies not only to enter
this terrible conflict, but also to proclaim this holy war. The object of the
latter was to rouse the passions of the Mohammedans throughout the
world against those powers which were fighting the Turco-Teutonic
alliance, with the hope of creating disastrous revolts in British, French,
and Russian possessions, where about 150,000,000 Mohammedan
subjects were peacefully living. The following exultant announcement
was made from Berlin by the German government, on November 20th,
1914:
“From all sections of Egypt come reports of enthusiastic
manifestations in favor of a holy war. The Sheikh-ul-Islam has
communicated with a majority of the Mohammedan princes of
Asia and Africa, who declare they will assist Turkey in a war
against England.”[160]
We are glad to say that, as is now well known, this project completely
failed in those countries where it would have done the most harm, but it
had its dire consequences in Persia. Immediately after their declaration
of war on the Allies the Turks took the offensive on a large scale. One
army invaded the Russian territory, and another crossed the Persian
frontier and entered the province of Azerbaijan. In this province were
many Syrians (Nestorians) and Armenians, who were living in villages
and towns. These Syrian Christians—like the Armenians—have suffered
many vicissitudes, including massacres by the hands of the Turks and
Kurds. But the Turkish invasion and short occupation of this province in
winter and early spring brought new horrors upon the Christian
inhabitants both Armenians and Syrians.
The moment hostilities broke out, the Turco-Kurdish soldiery began to
indulge itself in atrocities. The Persian province of Azerbaijan contains a
large population of Syriac Christians, and the suffering of these people at
the hands of the invading hordes are described with terrible detail in
letters from German missionaries[161] resident among them, letters which
were published on October 18 (1915), in the Dutch newspaper de Neimve
Rotterdamshe Courant. From the contents of these letters we select the
following:
“The latest news is that 4000 Syrians and one hundred
Armenians have died of disease alone, at the missions, within the
last few months. All villages in the surrounding districts, with
two or three exceptions, have been plundered and burnt, 20,000
Christians have been slaughtered in Ourmia and its environs.
Many churches have been destroyed and burnt, and also many
houses in the town....”
And here is a description from another letter:
“In Hoftewan and Solast 850 corpses, without heads, have
been recovered from the wells and cisterns alone. Why? Because
the commanding officer had put a price on every Christian head.
In Hoftewan alone more than 500 women and girls were
delivered to the Kurds at Sandjbulak. One can imagine the fate of
these unfortunate creatures. In Diliman crowds of Christians were
thrown into prison and compelled to accept Islam. The men were
circumcised. Gulpardjin, the richest village in the Ourmia
province, has been razed to the ground. The men were slain, the
good-looking women and girls carried away. The same in Babaru.
Hundreds of women jumped into the deep river, when they saw
how many of their sisters were violated by the bands of brigands,
in broad daylight, in the middle of the road. So also at Miandoab
in the Suldus district.”[162]
Dr. Sargis, an Armenian by nationality, a Persian by birth, and an
American citizen by choice, was doing medical missionary work in
Persia. He has recently returned by way of Russia. He stated, that in the
city of Urumia alone, ten thousand copies of the proclamation of the
“holy war” were received and distributed among the Mohammedans. Dr.
Sargis further stated in an interview[163] as follows:
“Followers of Mohammed have been expecting a ‘holy war’
for ages. They have been taught to expect the coming of Mehdi,
their Messiah, and the spread of Mohammed rule over the earth.
Now they are preaching in their mosques that Emperor William
of Germany is Mehdi.” He further stated that German soldiers
foster this fanaticism, until the Mohammedan has the idea that the
kaiser and all Germany have been converted to Islam. Officers of
German army wear bands on their arms with the creed of Islam
—‘There is only one God and Mohammed is His prophet.’ At
Ispahan the German officers enter the mosque and say
Mohammedan prayers. The massacres in Urumia began a year
ago, after the withdrawal of the Russian troops. The Russians had
been gone only five hours when the murder and plunder began.
Of the 113 Christian villages in Persia, not one escaped.
“In Ada was an Armenian merchant, Havil by name.... Havil
was shot down in the street, both legs broken and he lay helpless
until he died. Death didn’t come soon enough, however, to
prevent him seeing his eight-year-old daughter captured by the
fanatic Kurds and outraged before his eyes. That happened on
January 3, 1915.
“In the town of Kousi was a very old Christian church. The
fanatics entered it, took the Bible from the pulpit, tore out its
pages and carpeted the floor with them. Here they led hundreds of
girls and women—many of whom never left the building.
“At Gulpashan, seventy-nine men were tied hand to hand and
killed. Not one girl in the village escaped. The Turkish officers
entered one home and carried off several girls, who were weeping
around the body of their brother, a victim of the massacre.
“At a house in Urumia, where I was called to treat an army
officer, I found a girl. She told me she had been brought there
from a nearby Armenian village, which had been raided. Then
days before the massacre she had been married, and she saw her
husband killed before her eyes. She was taken to the city and held
there by three officers. I got them to release her, but she died—
she had suffered too much.
“A Turkish soldier killed a young Armenian at Garojaln and
carried off his wife and two small children, a boy and a girl. In
leaving the city, the soldiers had to cross a bridge spanning the
river. The soldiers dropped the two children into the river, one on
either side of the bridge, and led the mother away captive.
 “There was a Catholic priest, Yahmaruvi, who had endeared
himself to the people of the village. He acted as peacemaker in
the quarrels between the Armenians and the Mohammedans. All
Christians in the village were slaughtered but this priest. The
soldiers came and told him if he became a priest of Islam they
would let him live, because even the Mohammedans in the
village loved him. They tried to get the old priest to repeat their
creed. He started with them: ‘There is only one God—and Jesus
Christ, His son, is my Saviour,’ the priest uttered at the end. They
cut off his head....”
A doctor by name Shimmon was educated in this country and
naturally became a citizen. Of him Dr. Sargis said: “They tried to
get him to renounce Christianity. When he refused, they poured
oil on his body and set fire to him.”
Dr. W. S. Vanneman, the head of the mission hospital at Tabris, Persia,
wrote to the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church, N. Y.
City, under date of March 14, 1915:
“About ten days ago the Kurds in Salmas, with the permission
of the Turkish troops, gathered all the Nestorian and Armenian
men remaining there, it is reported, about eight hundred. Four
hundred were sent to Khosrova and four hundred to Haft Dewan
under the pretense of giving them bread. They were held a few
days and then tortured and massacred. Many women and children
were taken away and ill-treated. This happened a day or two
before the advancing Russian army took Salmas.
“We are very anxious about Urumia. A letter dated March 1st
from Dr. Shedd came through two days ago. He said things were
getting worse. Gulpashan, which hitherto had not been disturbed,
had been plundered and ruined. I think this was the only village
which remained. Fifty-one of the most prominent men of this
village were taken out and shot. The women and girls were
violated. This was done by the Turkish soldiers.
“Forty men had been taken from the Roman Catholic mission
in Urumia city, kept prisoners a few days, then shot.”
Under date of March 21, Doctor Vanneman wrote:
“We are more anxious than ever about Urumia. On March
17th, Turkish troops attacked our mission and the Roman
 Catholic mission and took five native Russian priests from our
compound and treated them badly. We do not know yet if they
were killed. Mr. Allen was also treated badly because he had sent
out three messengers away from Urumia.
“Some native Christian preachers have been crucified and
some burned....”
The testimonies of the German and American missionaries confirm
and supplement one another, and show the fearful results of the holy war.
For the Persian Armenians and Nestorians—Persia itself—had nothing to
do with Turkey. But the object of the Young Turks and their allies was to
arouse the Mohammedans of Persia—the only Mohammedan power
besides Turkey—against Russia, and Turks and Tatars in Transcaucasia,
and that thus they might spread the fire of the holy war. But they have
signally failed in the main.
When the Turkish army had to retreat from Persia before the
advancing Russians and fell back into Armenia proper in Turkish
territory, they let loose the demons—the Turkish regular and Kurdish
irregular troops upon the Armenian population. Their barbarities,
outrages, mutilations, murders, the devastations of numerous Armenian
villages, by the sword and fire, are beyond the possibility of description.
The few that could escape came to Van and told the people of the horrors
they witnessed and passed through.
The Armenians of Van knew that the same fate would soon come to
them. What should they do? Be loyal, submissive, passive, be butchered
by the Turkish soldiers and by their inveterate enemies, the Kurds? Or
should they make an attempt of self-defense, and let it cost the Turks and
Kurds something more than the mere time, labor and ammunition to
massacre the Armenians of Van? And that even if they should be
declared rebels against the lawful authorities by the Prussian and Turkish
officials? They decided upon the latter. And they did not decide too soon
either. For on the 20th of April, Jevdet Bey, the governor of Van, and the
Turkish soldiers commenced an attack on the city. The Armenians armed
themselves as best they could, and making such barricades and defenses
as time and materials could permit, they stood a siege of twenty-seven
days—only about 1500 defenders against 5000 assailants well equipped
with artillery. The Turks and Kurds on hearing of a Russian force
approaching left them and fled southward. On the 17th of May, the
Russians occupied Van.
 This is one of only two instances where the Armenians disappointed
the Turkish government and her Teutonic and Kurdish allies, and
deprived them of the pleasure of massacring the Christians. No wonder
that in the face of such instances Count Ernst von Reventlow resented
the American protest against Turkish massacres of the Armenians. We
reproduce only one paragraph from Reventlow’s article:[164]
“Indeed, the Turkish empire has been long enough compelled
to allow all powers who would destroy and rob her have their say
in her affairs. To-day the time for this is past. It will be past for
ever, so soon as the German empire takes up determinedly the
standpoint that the question as to what it intends to do with the
bloodthirsty Armenians is one that concerns her Turkish ally
alone.”
Resuming our doleful narrative in this Section, we regret to say that
the first occupation of Van by the Russians was not the last. For towards
the end of July, the Turks, being strongly reinforced, took the offensive
and succeeded in occupying Van. Although the Turkish offensive and
occupation of Van lasted only a short time—about three weeks—yet
within that time they exterminated all the Armenians behind their lines,
and in the country through which they marched. The retiring Russians,
however, contested stubbornly every mile of ground, and gained time for
the Armenians to escape the country, while the Russians fought rear-
guard actions and held back the Turks and Kurds from cutting the line of
retreat of the Armenian refugees. The sufferings of those panic-stricken
people were terrible. One of the German missionaries, in Persia, wrote:
“On the road, I found four little children. The mother sat on the
ground, her back resting against a wall. The hollow-eyed children
ran up to me, stretching out their hands and crying ‘Bread!
Bread!’ When I came closer to the mother, I saw that she was
dying.”
Here is a brief description of the whole scene:
“I wonder if it is possible to witness a more agonizing sight
than the present one. Human beings are dying in hundreds from
hunger, thirst, and exhaustion, and the means for relieving the
distress are very scanty. There is absolutely no possibility of even
buying bread. The first contingent of refugees has already
reached this place (Igdir). Owing to congestion on the roads, the
human tide had to be broken up into two channels; about 100,000
 walked through the plain of Abagha, their rear being guarded by
the Russian army under General N. and the Armenian regiments
under Andrianig and Dero; another 50,000 from the city of Van
were diverted into Persia, their rear being defended by the
mounted regiments of Keri and Hamazasp. Bloody rear-guard
actions are being fought to stem the Turks and Kurds, who are
pressing forward in order to cut the line of retreat of the
Armenians.”
We will at present leave these suffering thousands in the hands of their
sympathizing friends, the Russians, and the Russian Armenians, and
return to Armenia to see the condition of those who could not flee the
country.
The news of what was taking place behind the Turkish army lines
reached the Novaye Vryemya of Petrograd on July 22d.
“The Turkish atrocities in the district of Bitlis are
indescribable. After having massacred the whole male population
of this district, the Turks collected 9000 women and children
from the surrounding villages, and drove them in upon Bitlis.
Two days later they marched them out to the bank of the Tigris,
shot them all, and threw the 9000 corpses into the river.
“On the Euphrates, the Turks have cut down more than 1000
Armenians, throwing their bodies into the river. At the same time,
four battalions were ordered to march upon the valley of Moosh
to finish with the 12,000 Armenians inhabiting this valley.
According to the latest information, the massacre has already
begun.... All the Armenians in the Diarbekir region will likewise
be massacred.”
Here is another instance of suppressing the Armenian rebellion. The
detailed news was published on September 4th, by the Armenian journal,
Gotchnag of New York:
“Incredible news comes in about the massacres at Bitlis. In one
village 1000 Armenians—men, women, and children—have been
crowded into a wooden house, and the house set on fire. In
another large village of the district, only thirty-six people have
escaped the massacre. In another, they roped together men and
women by dozens, and threw them into the Lake of Van. A young
Armenian of Bitlis, who was in the army, and who, after being
 disarmed and employed on road-making, succeeded in escaping
and reaching Van, related that the ex-vali of Van, Djevdet Bey,
has had males between the ages of fifteen and forty massacred at
Bitlis. He has had their families deported in the direction of Sert,
but has kept with him all the prettiest girls. Bitlis is now occupied
by tens of thousands of Turkish and Kurdish mouhadjirs
(refugees).”
The condition of affairs in northwestern and western Armenia and in
the provinces of Asia Minor was not any better. It was, in fact, a great
deal worse. Because there was no Russian army to protect them, or in
case of danger, to take them into a friendly country, no matter with what
terrible hardships they may get there. They were absolutely helpless and
completely at the mercy of the ruthless cruelty of the Turkish officials
and mobs.
In April, the central government, from Constantinople, sent orders to
the local authorities in Armenia and Asia Minor to the effect that the
Armenians having been found to be a great danger to the security of the
state, they should be severely suppressed in advance in order that they
might be made harmless, and the empire might be safe. Most of the local
authorities at once understood what the orders meant, and were not slow
to undertake the work. The orders were carried out in the following
manner:
On an appointed day, the governor of a town or city, whichever it
might happen to be, summoned all able bodied men of Armenian race to
present themselves either in a government building or some such
designated place. A sufficient number of police and gendarmes are on
hand to see that this demand is obeyed by all. If any Armenian has the
audacity to disobey, he is dragged there by force. Then these men were
led into a lonely spot and were disposed of. The gendarmes or the police
who did the work of execution returned into the town. If the number was
too large to take them all at once, the process was repeated until all the
work was done in the same manner.
Following is the description of one of scores of its kind:
“In the town of Agantz a list of those to be executed was sent
to the local governor, and 2500 (men) were summoned to appear
at the governor’s house and listen to the reading of a
proclamation. The natives knew the meaning of the order, and
 many of them ignored it. They were later dragged to prison by
gendarmes and held for execution.
“It is conservatively estimated that 2500 listed men were held
in prison here. They were taken out in groups of fifty, led to a
trench and there shot down. The fifty dead were tossed to one
side, a fresh group of fifty led to the trench. This tremendous
execution was continued until the entire 2500 men were
massacred.”
One more instance:
“... One night towards the end of June (1915), suddenly,
without any warning, the houses of most of all of the Armenians
who still remained in the city were forcibly entered by the police
and gendarmes. The men were arrested and held as prisoners in
the soldiers’ barracks at one side of the city. Their whole number
amounted to 1213.[165] Two more of our leading Armenian
professors were arrested on this occasion....” These men “were
told that they were to be sent away into exile at Mosul, in the
deserts of Mesopotamia, six or seven hundred miles away....
These 1213 men, after being held for a few days, were bound
together in small groups of five or six men each, and sent off at
night in companies of from fifty to one hundred fifty under the
escort of gendarmes. Some fifteen miles from the city they were
set upon by the gendarmes and by bondsmen called chettes and
cruelly murdered with axes.... One of the gendarmes who helped
drive away these 1213 men boasted to our French teacher that he
had killed fifty Armenians with his own hands, and had obtained
from them 150 Turkish Pounds. The chief of police at —— stated
that none of these 1213 men remained alive. Our Consular Agent
visited the place of this slaughter early in August, and brought
back with him Turkish ‘Nufus tezkereses,’ identification papers,
taken from the bodies of the victims. I personally saw these
papers. They were all besmeared with blood.”
There is no need to tell the same monotonous tale of most fiendish
murders which took place all over Armenia and Asia Minor wherever the
Armenians were found; and the local authorities with scrupulous
exactness obeyed the behests of their superiors, the arch fiends at
Constantinople. Some of our Prussian friends, in spite of all, still say: “If
the Porte deems it necessary that the Armenian rebellions and other
riotous proceedings be repressed with all available means, so that a
repetition becomes impossible, such actions are not to be designated
either as murders or as atrocities. They are simply justifiable and
necessary measures....”
Woe to the men, women and children of the Armenian race, that have
been judged and dealt with by the Prussian sense of justice! The Belgians
in the West, the Armenians in the East were treated by the same Prussian
sense of justice.
Here is another instance of the “bloodthirsty Armenian rebellions”
whose suppression is “simply justifiable and necessary,” as Count Ernst
von Reventlow says:
“To give one instance of the thorough and remorseless way in
which the massacres were carried out, it may suffice to refer to
the case of Trebizond, a case vouched for by the Italian Consul,
who was present when the slaughter was carried out, his country
not having then declared war against Turkey. Orders came from
Constantinople that all the Armenian Christians in Trebizond
were to be killed. Many of the Moslems tried to save their
Christian neighbors, and offered them shelter in their houses, but
the Turkish authorities were implacable. Obeying the orders
which they had received, they hunted out all the Christians,
gathered them together, and drove a great crowd of them down
the streets of Trebizond, past the fortress, to the edge of the sea.
There they were all put on board sailing boats, carried out some
distance on the Black Sea, and there thrown overboard and
drowned. Nearly the whole Armenian population of from 8000 to
10,000 were destroyed—some in this way, some by slaughter,
some being sent to death elsewhere.”[166]
Allowing that, at the least there were 1,500,000 Armenians in the
Turkish empire in the autumn of 1914, the government could draw out at
least 100,000 soldiers—most probably she did draw twice as many.
These soldiers could and gladly would render excellent service to the
empire. Their loyalty has not been suspected, neither has their fidelity
been in question. What a criminal folly to disarm them, what an
unpardonable sin, and a suicidal act to massacre them. But that is what
the Young Turks did. They are trying to get rid of the Christian
population of Turkey by the sword and fire on the one hand, on the other
hand, they were letting the Germans take charge and have control of the
army and navy and make the Turkish government a German vassalage;
and yet they say they are going to “have Turkey for the Turks.”
The following is from the pen of Dr. Herbert Adams Gibbons, who
tells us what the Armenian ex-soldiers were doing and how they were
treated by the government which they were serving:
“In the autumn of 1914, the Turks began to mobilize Christians
as well as Moslems for the army. For six months, in every part of
Turkey they called upon the Armenians for military service.
Exemption money was accepted for those who could pay. A few
weeks later the exemption certificates were disregarded, and their
holders enrolled. The younger classes of Armenians, who did not
live too far from Constantinople, were placed, as in the Balkan
wars, in the active army. The older ones, and all the Armenians
enrolled in the more distant region, were utilized for road,
railway, and fortification building. Wherever they were called,
and to whatever task they were put, the Armenians did their duty
and worked for the defense of Turkey. They proved themselves
brave soldiers and intelligent and industrious laborers....
“... In order to prevent the possibility of trouble from
Armenians mobilized for railway and road construction, they
were divided into companies of from three to five hundred, and
put to work at intervals of several miles. Regiments of the
Turkish regular army were sent ‘to put down the Armenian
revolution,’ and came suddenly upon the little groups of workers
plying pickaxe, crowbar, and shovel. The ‘rebels’ were riddled
with bullets before they knew what was happening. The few who
managed to flee were followed by mounted men, and shot or
sabred.
“Telegrams began to pour in upon Talaat Bey at
Constantinople, announcing that here, there, and everywhere
Armenian uprisings had been put down, and telegrams were
returned, congratulating the local officials upon the success of
their prompt measures. To neutral newspaper men at
Constantinople, to neutral diplomats, who had heard vaguely of a
recurrence of Armenian massacres, this telegraphic
correspondence was shown as proof that an imminent danger had
been averted. ‘We have not been cruel, but we admit having been
severe,’ declared Talaat Bey. ‘This is war time.’”[167]
 FOOTNOTES:
[159] See the footnote on p. 129.
[160] See The North American (Phila.), Mar. 8, 1915.
[161] Members of the “Deutsch Orient-Mission.”
[162] Toynbee, “Armenian Atrocities,” pp. 85-86. Published by Hodder
and Stoughton, London and New York.
[163] This interview was published in The North American, Phila., Feb. 14,
1916.
[164] Von Reventlow’s article was published in the Deutsche Tages
Zeitung, reported in the Dailies. I quote from the North American, Oct. 15,
1915.
[165] The Armenian population of this city was 12,000, but all the males
between 18 and 50 were drafted into the army and taken away before this.
[166] Toynbee, “Armenian Atrocities,” pp. 10-11. This quotation is from
Lord Bryce’s report, published by Hodder and Stoughton.
[167] Gibbons, “The Blackest Page of Modern History,” pp. 17, 18, 21, 23,
published by G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, 1916.
 XIX
THE DEPORTATIONS

The second act was far more diabolical and hellish than the first,
because it was not an instant death by shooting or knocking on the head
with an axe, or sabring, or throwing boat-loads of human beings into the
sea. It was death by starvation, by rape, by disease and by a slavery far
worse than all. By what process was this to be accomplished? By
deportation.
By the help of the sultan, who marshaled his hosts against Heaven, of
whom John Milton wrote centuries ago, the arch fiends at Constantinople
hatched out this plan of deportation of the entire Armenian population to
Mesopotamia, a distance of from 300 to 700 miles away from the
Armenian communities. Orders came from the central government at
Constantinople to the local authorities in the provinces of Asia Minor
and Armenia. “These orders were explicit and detailed. No hamlet was
too insignificant to be missed. The news was given by town criers that
every Armenian was to be ready to leave at a certain hour for an
unknown destination. There were no exceptions for the aged, the ill, the
women in pregnancy. Only rich merchants and bankers and good-looking
women and girls were allowed to escape by professing Islam; and let it
be said to their everlasting honor that few availed themselves of this
means of escape.”
There were several reasons for the scheme of deportation: one of them
was the helpless women, children, the ill and the aged men were still
menacing the safety of the empire! Another, and the most fundamental
reason was the government’s determination to get rid of the Armenians
so as to get rid of the Armenian question once for all. Still another reason
was that the homes of the Armenians were wanted in advance. The
Moslem refugees from Macedonia must be settled in the provinces which
were occupied by the Armenians. Another reason was to show how the
association of the Turk with the highly cultured and civilized nation, the
German, had mollified the brutal heart of the Turk, who did not, and
would not massacre the defenseless women, children, the ill, the aged
men—for such stories are “fabrications!”
 We reproduce a few instances of these stories which the Turkish
Ambassador—it may be the German too—declares are “fabrications, no
women and children have been killed.”
“We are shocked at the cruelties perpetrated in these
massacres. Trenchant pens have portrayed the horrors. Even some
Germans have been found to denounce these massacres and to
accuse the infamous ally of the Teutonic kaisers of the most
terrible cruelties. Witness the following narrative which I quote
from the November, 1915, issue of the Allegemeine Missione
Zeitschrift, published in Berlin.
“‘A gendarme related to us, in such details as to make us
shudder, how the Turks had maltreated a group of women and
children, who were driven into exile. They slaughtered the
Armenians without any hindrance. Each day ten or twelve men
are hurled down into the ravines. They crush the skulls of those
children who are too weak to walk.
“‘One day, early, we heard the procession of those doomed
victims. Their misfortune was indescribable. They were in
absolute silence—the young and old, even grandfathers
advancing under such burdens as even their asses could hardly
carry. All were to be chained together and then precipitated from
the highest summit of a steep rock into the torrent of the
Euphrates river. This froze our hearts. Our gendarme tells us that
he had driven from Mama-Khatoun a similar group of people,
composed of 3000 women and children, who were exterminated.
“‘On the 30th day of May, 674 Armenians were embarked in
13 sloops on the Tigris. Gendarmes were in each embarkation.
These sloops departed towards Mosul. On the way the gendarmes
threw all the unfortunates into the river, after having robbed them
of their money and clothing. They kept the money and sold the
clothing in the markets.
“‘An employee of the Bagdad railway related that the
Armenians were imprisoned wholesale in the dungeons of
Biredjik to be thrown into the Euphrates river at night. The
corpses washed on to the river banks became a prey for dogs and
vultures.’
 “What law of retaliation could ever account for such
abominable crimes? And moreover, what price must be exacted
for the crimes of Kultur in Belgium, France, Serbia and
Armenia?”[168]
There was no possible excuse for such barbarities to be poured upon
the Armenians. Had there been any excuse the German, American, and
Swiss missionaries, and the consuls of the neutral nations who witnessed
these atrocities would have pointed it out. In fact, the whole civilized
world stood “with shuddering horror pale, and eyes aghast” at the
unparalleled savagery of the Turks, except those who were intoxicated
with Prussian militarism, the advocates and defenders of the booty-
loving and obscene Mohammedan fiends.
“It is hardly possible to imagine to oneself the implication of
such a decree [of deportation]. These [Armenians] were not
savages, like the Red Indians who retired before the White man
across the American continent. They were not nomadic shepherds
like their barbarous neighbors the Kurds. They were people living
the same life as ourselves, townspeople established in the town
for generations and the chief authors of its local prosperity. They
were sedentary people, doctors and lawyers and teachers,
business men and artisans and shopkeepers, and they had raised
solid monuments to their intelligence and industry. Costly
churches and well-appointed schools. Their women were as
delicate, as refined, as unused to hardships and brutality as
women in Europe or the United States. In fact, they were in the
closest personal touch with Western civilization, for many of the
Armenian centers upon which the crime was perpetrated had been
served by the American missions and colleges for at least fifty
years, and were familiar with the fine men and women who
directed them.”[169]
The government’s determination to exterminate the Armenian race
was not a sudden impulse. It was a deliberate scheme of long standing.
After the overthrow of the Hamidian despotism, the Young Turks
encouraged the Armenians to organize societies and even permitted them
to possess firearms. Their diabolical purpose was not suspected by the
trusting Armenians. But when war broke out, the Turks joined the
Teutons in hopes to share the rich booty of the war. When this was not
forthcoming, they bethought that the opportune moment had come to
loot the Armenians, and carry out the plan of annihilation. They had not
much difficulty in making out a case against these societies, saying that
they were of a revolutionary character; and their possession of firearms
was taken as a proof of the same.
Dr. Gibbons gives in his excellent little book, “The Blackest Page of
Modern History,” the following statement which was made by the
Turkish Consul General in New York: “‘However much to be deplored
may be these harrowing events, in the last analysis we can but say the
Armenians have only themselves to blame.’ Djelal Munif Bey went on to
explain that the Armenians had been planning a revolution, and were
killed by the Turkish soldiers only after they had been caught ‘red-
handed with arms in their hands, resisting lawful authority.’”
In Adabazar 500 leading Armenians were arrested and imprisoned in
the Armenian church. They had their daily tortures and beatings to
induce them to implicate one another, and to deliver their arms. Whether
they were all the members of a society or not it did not matter. For ten
days these men have been tortured, and the whole population of the
Armenians—some 20,000 or more—were terrorized and paralysed.
Towards the end of this time, the head of the society who had been an
exile suddenly returned. At the trial—or rather at the Inquisition—he
boldly answered: “Why do you punish these men? If there is any fault it
is mine, and yet I also am guiltless. This society was organized with the
permission of the Government. You allowed us to obtain firearms.”
The eye-witness further states that soon after this the whole Armenian
population of Adabazar was “turned into the streets to wait their turn to
go. There they waited, with their baggage, for days by the roadside near
the station. As soon as they vacated their houses, refugees
(Mohammedans) from Macedonia took possession of them.”
“The people who had any money went to Konia by freight cars,
being allowed to take only a few possessions with them. They
were told to leave their possessions in the churches and they
would be safeguarded, but the same promise had been made in
Sabandja, and the church had been looted almost before the
people were out of the city; so nobody trusted this promise. The
exiles were crowded on top of their possessions, sixty to eighty
people in a car marked forty people.
“From Konia they were to go by foot or carriage to a desert
place called Mosul (province) in Mesopotamia. Those who had
 no money must take the entire journey (about 1000 miles) by
foot.”
Here is a portion of the description of an eye-witness:
“Not a single person with an Armenian name, whether rich or
poor, old or young, sick or well, male or female, was to be left in
the city. They were to have three days to prepare to go.... The
promise of three days was not kept. The very next morning the
local police with gendarmes well armed with Mauser rifles began
to enter the Armenian houses and drive the women and children
into the streets and lock the doors of their houses behind them
and sealed them with the government’s seal, thus dispossessing
them of all their worldly possessions. They then assigned four or
five persons to each of the ox-carts which they had brought with
them with which to send the people away. But the carts were not
intended to carry the people. They had to walk beside them. The
carts were for carrying a pillow and a single bed covering for
each person. When they had gotten from 500 to 1000 persons
ready in this manner they were set moving, a doleful procession,
driven by gendarmes along the roads toward the east. Morning
after morning, during the month of July (1915) we saw groups of
this kind pass by the college compound, the women carrying their
babies in their arms and leading their little children by the hand,
without anything left in this world, starting on a hopeless journey
of a thousand miles into the wilderness, to miserably die or to be
captured by Turks. By the end of July, the city was emptied in
this manner of its 12,000 Armenian population.”

“At the mountain village of Geben the women were at the

wash-tub and were compelled to leave their wet clothes in the
water and take the road barefooted and half-clad, just as they
were. In some cases they were able to carry part of their scanty
household furniture or implements of agriculture, but for the most
part they were neither to carry anything nor to sell it, even where
there was time to do so.”
“In Hadjin well-to-do people who had prepared food and
bedding for the road, were obliged to leave it in the street, and
 afterwards suffered greatly from hunger.” “In one place the
people had been given notice to depart on Wednesday; the carts
appeared on Tuesday at 3.30 . ., and the people were ordered to
leave at once. ‘Some were dragged from their beds without even
sufficient clothing.’”
The kind-hearted eye-witness suffered almost as much as the exiles.
Here is a description:
“The weeping and wailing of the women and children was
most heartrending. Some of these people were from wealthy and
refined circles, some were accustomed to luxury and ease. There
were clergymen, merchants, bankers, mechanics, tailors, and men
from every walk of life. The whole Mohammedan population
knew from the beginning that these people were to be their prey,
and they were treated as animals.”
Here is one more from a different place:
“All the morning the ox-carts creaked out of the town, laden
with women and children, and here and there a man who had
escaped the previous deportation. The women and girls all wore
the Turkish costumes, that their faces might not be exposed to the
gaze of the drivers and gendarmes—a brutal lot of men brought
in from other regions....
“The panic in the city was terrible.... The people were sure that
the men were being killed and the women kidnapped. Many of
the convicts in the prisons had been released, and the mountains
around were full of bands of outlaws....
“Most of the Armenians in the district were absolutely
hopeless. Many said it was worse than a massacre. No one knew
what was coming, but all felt that it was the end. Even the pastors
and leaders could offer no word of encouragement or hope....
Under the severe strain many individuals became demented,
some of them permanently.”[170]
Thousands of boys and girls of assimilable age have been torn away
from the bleeding hearts of their parents, and sold and distributed among
the Mohammedans, and many thousands more have perished by disease,
by exhaustion, by starvation, and by cruel murder.
The following description was written from Malatia:
 “Boys under ten and girls under fourteen are accepted here as
orphans (by the Mohammedans). More than 800, practically all
from Sivas province, are here.... Many have become sick, and
they are dying off pretty rapidly. It is evident that many will die
on the way....”
Another report says that the dervishes, the fanatical Moslem devotees,
met the caravans of the deported Armenians on their road and carried off
children, shrieking with terror, to bring them up as Moslems in their
savage fraternity. Here another: “Many of the boys appear to have been
sent to another district, to be distributed among the farmers. The best
looking of the older girls are kept in houses for the pleasure of members
of the gang who seem to rule affairs here....”
The Armenian journal Horizon, of Tiflis, reported in its issue of Aug.
22d (old style), that:
“A telegram from Bukarest states that the Turks have sent from
Anatolia (Asia Minor) four railway-vans full of Armenian
orphans from the interior of the country, to distribute them among
Moslem families.
“Some were sold into shame before the march began. ‘One
Moslem reported that gendarmes had offered to sell him two girls
for a medjikieh (about eighty cents).’ They sold the youngest and
most handsome at every village where they passed the night; and
these girls have been trafficked in hundreds through the brothels
of the Ottoman Empire. Abundant news has come from
Constantinople itself of their being sold for a few shillings in the
open markets of the capital; and one piece of evidence in Lord
Bryce’s possession comes from a girl no more than ten years old,
who was carried with this object from a town of North Eastern
Anatolia to the shores of Bosphorus. These were Christian
women, as civilized and refined as the women of Western
Europe, and they were enslaved into degradation.”[171]
It was estimated that the exiles from three viliayets alone numbered
about 600,000.
“We believe there is imminent danger for the Sivas, Erzroom
and Harpoot viliayets to be 600,000 will starve to death on the
road. They took food for a few days, but did not dare take much
 money with them, as, if they did so, it is doubtful whether they
would be allowed to keep it.”
We must now follow the exiles on the way to death and destruction. In
the following case the officers seem to think it not worth their while to
drive so few away; and they may have been very poor:
“Forty-five men and women were taken a short distance. The
women were first outraged by the officers of the gendarmerie,
and then turned over to the gendarmes to dispose of. According to
this witness, a child was killed by having its brains beaten out on
a rock. The men were all killed, and not a single person survived
out of this group of forty-five.
“The forced exodus of the last part of the Armenian population
from a certain district took place on June 1st, 1915. All the
villages as well as three-quarters of the town, had already been
evacuated. An escort of fifteen gendarmes followed the third
convoy, which included 4000 to 5000 persons. The prefect of the
city had wished them a pleasant journey. But at a few hours’
distance from the town, the caravan was surrounded by bands of a
brigand-tribe, and by a mob of Turkish peasants armed with guns,
axes, and clubs. They first began plundering their victims,
searching carefully even the very young children. The gendarmes
sold to the Turkish peasants what they could not carry away with
them. After they had taken even the food of these unhappy
people, the massacre of the males began, including two priests,
one of whom was ninety. In six or seven days all males above
fifteen years of age had been murdered.
“It was the beginning of the end. People on horseback raised
the veils of the women, and carried off the pretty ones.”
The following is a portion of a detailed description by an eye-witness,
who was in the company on the march, and saw the third batch, above
mentioned, of 5000 to melt out before they stopped in a halting place
after thirty-two days:
“... The rest of the population was sent off in three batches; I
was among the third batch.... Our party left on June 1st (old
style), fifteen gendarmes going with us.... Very many women and
girls were carried off to the mountains, among them my sister,
whose one-year-old baby they threw away. A Turk picked it up
 and carried it off. I know not where. My mother walked till she
could walk no further, and dropped by the roadside, on a
mountain top. We found on the road many who had been in the
previous batches; some women were among the killed, with their
husbands and sons. We also came across some old people and
infants still alive, but in a pitiful condition....
“We were not allowed to sleep at night in the villages, but lay
down outside. Under cover of the night indescribable deeds were
committed by the gendarmes, brigands and villagers. Many of us
[the company] died from hunger and strokes of apoplexy. Others
were left by the roadside too feeble to go on.
“The worst and most unimaginable horrors were reserved for
us at the banks of the (Western) Euphrates and the Erzindjan
plain. The mutilated bodies of women, girls and little children
made everybody shudder. The brigands were doing all sorts of
awful deeds to the women and girls who were with us, whose
cries went up to heaven. At the Euphrates, the brigands and
gendarmes threw into the river all the remaining children under
fifteen years old. Those who could swim were shot down as they
struggled in the water.”
Miss Mary Louise Graffam secured the permission of the governor of
Sivas to accompany her school girls on their way to exile—supposedly—
to Mesopotamia, but actually to their destruction. After about ten days’
journey she was not permitted to go any further. At Malatia, where she
had to give up her charge, she remained a few days; from there she wrote
a letter to a friend in Constantinople. We reproduce a few excerpts from
her letter.
“When we were ready to leave Sivas, the government gave
forty-five ox-carts for the Protestant townspeople and eighty
horses, but had none at all for our pupils and teachers; so we
bought ten oxcarts, two horses, arabas (wagons), and five or six
donkeys, and started out. In the company (of 2000) were all our
teachers in the college, about twenty boys from the college, and
about thirty of the girls’ school. It was a special favor to the Sivas
people, who had not done anything revolutionary (?) that the Vali
allowed the men who were not yet in prison[172] to go with their
families.
 “... We were so near Sivas (the first night) that the gendarmes
protected us and no special harm was done; but the second night
we began to see what was before us. The gendarmes would go
ahead and have long conversations with the villagers, and then
stand back and let them rob and trouble the people until we began
to scream and then they would come and drive them away.
Yorgans (blankets) and rugs and all such things disappeared by
the dozens and donkeys were sure to be lost. Many had brought
cows, but from the first day those were carried off one by one
until not a single one remained.
“We got accustomed to being robbed, but the third day a new
fear took possession of us, and that was that the men were to be
separated from us at Kangal.... At Kangal they said that a valley
near there was full of corpses. Here also we began to see exiles
from Tocat. The sight was one to strike horror to any heart. There
were a company of old women who had been robbed of
absolutely everything. At Tocat the government had first
imprisoned the men, and from the prison had taken them on the
road.[173] The preacher’s wife was in the company and told us the
story. After the men were gone they arrested the old women and
the older brides. There were very few young women or children.
All the younger women and children were left in Tocat. Badvelli
(Rev.) Avedis has seven children. One was with our schoolgirls
and the other six remained in Tocat, without father or mother to
look after them. For three days these Tocat people had been
without food, and after that lived on the Sivas Company, who had
not yet lost much.
“... The next day we heard that a special Kaimakam had come
to Hassan Chalebe to separate the men.... But we encamped and
ate our supper in peace, and even began to think that perhaps it
was not so, when the mudir came around with gendarmes and
began to collect the men, saying that the Kaimakam wanted to
write their names and that they would be back soon.
“The night passed, only one man came back to tell the story of
how every man was compelled to give up all his money, and that
all were taken to prison. The next morning they collected the men
who had escaped the night before and extorted forty-five lires....
 “Broken-hearted, the women continued their journey. ... The
mudir said the men had gone back to Sivas. The villagers whom
we saw all declared that all those men were killed at once....
“As soon as the men left us the Turkish drivers began to rob
the women, saying, ‘You are all going to be thrown into the
Tokma Su, so you might as well give your things to us and then
we will stay by you and try to protect you.’ Every Turkish woman
that we met said the same thing. The worst were the gendarmes,
who really did more or less bad things. One of the schoolgirls
was carried off by the Kurds twice, but her companions made so
much fuss that she was brought back. I was on the run all the time
from one end of the company to the other....
“As we approached the bridge over the Takma Su, it was
certainly a fearful sight. As far as the eye could see over the plain
was this slow-moving line of ox-carts. For hours there was not a
drop of water on the road and the sun poured down its very
hottest. As we went on, we began to see the dead from
yesterday’s company and the weak began to fall by the way. The
Kurds working in the fields made attacks continually and we
were half-distracted. I piled as many as I could on our wagons,
our pupils, both boys and girls, worked like heroes. One girl took
a baby from its dead mother and carried it until evening. Another
carried a dying woman until she died. I counted forty-nine deaths,
but there must have been many more. One naked body of a
woman was covered with bruises. I saw the Kurds robbing the
bodies of these not yet entirely dead....
“The hills on each side were white with Kurds who were
throwing stones on the Armenians, who were slowly wending
their way to the bridge. I ran ahead and stood on the bridge in the
midst of a crowd of Kurds until I was used up.... After crossing
the bridge, we found all the Sivas people who had left before us,
waiting by the river, as well as companies from Samsoun (a city
on the Black Sea), Amasia, and other places.
“My friends here (in Malatia) are very glad to have me with
them, for they have a very difficult problem on their hands, and
are nearly crazy with the horrors they have been through here.
The mutessarif and other officials here and at Sivas have again
and again read me orders from Constantinople to the effect that
 the lives of these exiles are to be protected, and from their actions
I should judge that they must have received such orders;[174] but
they certainly have murdered a great many in every city. Here
there were great trenches dug by the soldiers (for the purpose
beforehand) for drilling purposes. Now these trenches are all
filled up, and our friends saw carts going back from the city by
night. A man I know told me that when he was out to inspect
some work he was having done, he saw a dead body which had
evidently been pulled out of one of these trenches, probably by
dogs.... The Beledieh Reiz here says that every male over ten
years old is being murdered, that not one is to live, and no woman
over fifteen.”[175]
Miss Graffam’s letter was dated Aug. 7, 1915, at Malatia; not a word
has been heard from the company of 2000 exiles, whom she so
heroically defended until her separation from them near Malatia. The
author’s sister and brothers, and their families were in this company. The
probability is that all have perished by this time, if not massacred soon
after their guardian angel left them.

FOOTNOTES:
[168] The New Armenia, May 15, 1916, New York; the article The
Martyrdom of Armenia, by Paul Perrin.
[169] Toynbee, “Armenian Atrocities,” pp. 30-1.
[170] A repetition of a case which is reported from the massacres of 1909
when a woman who had seen her child burnt alive in the village church,
answered her would-be comforters: “Don’t you see what has happened? God
has gone mad.” Toynbee, “Armenian Atrocities,” p. 38.
[171] Toynbee, “Armenian Atrocities,” pp. 39, 40.
[172] There were about 1500 or more of the Armenians in prison in Sivas,
waiting to be massacred.
[173] The men at Tocat, like those in many other places, were taken on the
road and killed. An Armenian soldier, serving in the Turkish army was
captured by the British at the Dardanelles. This soldier stated, “How men of
Tocat were tied together in groups of four and taken 100 at a time to the
marshy districts for massacre.”
[174] These local officials receive two orders from the central government:
the one to be shown to the neutrals, the other to deal with the Armenians. The
latter order is to kill the Armenians in any manner they please.
[175] The Missionary Herald, Dec., 1915. Boston, Mass.
 XX
CAMPS OF REFUGE

We have been looking only at the physical sufferings of these people.

Terrible as they have been who could realize or imagine the spiritual, the
mental agony of those refined souls, who have seen day by day the
fiendish deeds more abominable than the tortures and massacres? “The
spiritual torment could perhaps only be fathomed by actual experience.”
We could not think that in the second decade of the 20th century a
small “gang of unscrupulous ruffians” could and did defy the laws of
humanity and decency; and still be permitted to continue to practice such
barbarities in the face of an outraged human conscience. Indeed, if these
were not well established facts, we would not believe them.
There are two reasons why the Young Turks still continue their
practice of barbarity and abominations: the first is that they are defended
by the greatest military powers, the Teutonic arms; the second is the
indifference of the neutral states. The United States was first “too proud
to fight” for the suffering humanity. And again, “With the causes and
issues of this war we have no concern.” Some American missionaries
have died as the result of their ill-treatment by the Turks. American
properties worth several millions were seized and occupied by the
Turkish government and the missionaries compelled to leave the country.
One of these missionaries writes:
“I have received the farewell kiss and parting embrace of men,
cultured Christian gentlemen, some of whom held university
degrees from our best American institutions in this country; men
with whom I have co-operated, and at whose sides I have labored
for ten years in the work of education in that land, while at their
sides stood brutal gendarmes, sent there by the highest authorities
of the Government to drive them with their wives and children
away from their homes, from their work, and from all the
associations which they held most dear, into exile or to death;
some of them to a condition worse than either. We had no better
friends in this world than those people. To part with them under
such circumstances was harder than I can say, and yet but few
 tears were shed on either side. Our feelings were too deep for idle
tears! I have often seen pictures of the early Christian martyrs
crouching together in the arena of the Coliseum expecting any
moment to be torn to pieces by the hungry lions which were
being turned loose upon them, while the eager spectators were
watching from their safe seats, and waiting to be amused by that
spectacle. And I had supposed that such cruelties and such
amusements were impossible in this twentieth Christian century;
but I was mistaken. I have seen sixty-two Armenian women and
girls between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five, huddled
together in the rooms of the principal of our American Girls’
School at ——, while outside were waiting men more cruel than
beast, ready to carry them off; and who backed by the highest
authorities of the Government, were demanding that we should
deliver these defenseless girls into the hands of these brutal men
to do with them what they would. I have supposed that there was
no man in the world to-day who could be amused by such a
spectacle as that. In this, too, I was mistaken; for when the wife
of our American Ambassador at Constantinople made a personal
appeal to Talaat Bey, the Minister of the Interior in the Turkish
cabinet, the man who more than any one else has devised and
executed this deportation of the Armenians, and who has boasted
that he has been able to destroy more Armenians in thirty days
than Abdul Hamid was able to destroy in thirty years—when she
made an appeal to this Turkish Minister, begging him to stop this
cruel persecution of Armenian women and girls, only answered,
‘All this amuses us.’”[176]
The absurdity of the Turkish excuses that the Armenians were
preparing, or intending to revolt is plainly seen by the following
instances: In places where the people knew the object of the government
was to massacre them, they resisted the government and the authorities
had no difficulty in subduing them. The Turks had indeed a better excuse
for massacre and the people their choice of an immediate, instead of a
lingering, death.
When the people of Shabin Karahussar, a town about 100 miles
southwest of Trebizond, were ordered to prepare for deportation, they
took up arms, and defended themselves against the Turkish troops from
the middle of May to the end of June. Then the Turks, with more
reinforcements and artillery, had no difficulty in overwhelming them.